Folding
It is convenient to temporarily fold away (hide) parts of your file, leaving only an outline of the major parts visible. This tip presents an overview of using folding. Many programming languages have a syntax file that supports folding. Typically, each function is regarded as a fold that can be opened or closed. With all folds closed, you see only the first line of each function for an overview of the program. Folding methods To activate folding in your text, you will need to set the 'foldmethod' option. The 'foldmethod' option (abbreviated to 'fdm') is local to each window. It determines what kind of folding applies in the current window. Possible values are: *manual – folds must be defined by entering commands (such as ) *indent – groups of lines with the same indent form a fold *syntax – folds are defined by syntax highlighting *expr – folds are defined by a user-defined expression *marker – special characters can be manually or automatically added to your text to flag the start and end of folds *diff – used to fold unchanged text when viewing differences (automatically set in diff mode) Manual folding Normally it is best to use an automatic folding method, but manual folding is simple and can be useful for dealing with small folds. When foldmethod is set to manual (or marker), a fold can be created in Normal mode by typing zf{motion}. For example, zf'a will fold from the current line to wherever the mark a has been set, or zf3j folds the current line along with the following 3 lines. If you want to create folds in a text file that uses curly braces to delimit code blocks ({...}), you can use the command zfa} to create a fold for the current code block. Alternatively, an arbitrary group of lines can be folded by selecting them to enter Visual mode and pressing zf. This allows you to preview the section you've selected before you fold it. The above example of folding the current code block could also be accomplished by first selecting the code block delimited by the curly braces (va}) and then creating the fold (zf). Putting this together gives va}zf. Manual folds can also be created in Command mode :{range}fold, e.g., the current line along with the following three lines (as in the example above) can be folded by running :,+3fo. Use zd to delete the fold at the cursor (no text is deleted, just the fold markers); zD is used to recursively delete folds at the cursor. Indent folding As noted above, with 'foldmethod' set to indent, lines with the same level of indentation will be folded together. Note this means text like this: Line one Line two Line three Line four will be folded as follows, which may not be expected: Line one + Line two and three Line four Since folding by indent may not be as clear as you like, the foldcolumn is especially useful for this method. Setting foldcolumn to at least the level of folds you want displayed will show a sidebar, in which you can see which lines in the file can be folded, or are already folded, with a '+' (closed) or '-' (open) indicator. Syntax folding Try :setlocal foldmethod=syntax. Many syntax files define folding based on the language syntax, although you may need to enable it by setting syntax file options. If a specific syntax file doesn't define folding, you can define your own. Note that this particular fold method especially may define too many folds for your liking. You can change this using the option, by setting it to a value low enough for your liking. Indent folding with manual folds If you like the convenience of having Vim define folds automatically by indent level, but would also like to create folds manually, you can get both by putting this in your vimrc: augroup vimrc au BufReadPre * setlocal foldmethod=indent au BufWinEnter * if &fdm 'indent' | setlocal foldmethod=manual | endif augroup END The first autocommand sets 'indent' as the fold method before a file is loaded, so that indent-based folds will be defined. The second one allows you to manually create folds while editing. It's executed after the modeline is read, so it won't change the fold method if the modeline set the fold method to something else like 'marker' or 'syntax'. Folding by expression This is the most complicated, but also the most powerful fold method. You can use it to fold in pretty much any way you desire. For example, you could fold away text not matching a regular expression. See for details. Folding with markers Setting foldmethod to "marker" is similar to manual folding, because you can use zf and zd to add/remove folds, and all folds are defined manually. However, it works by adding special markers to your buffer text so that the same folds can be loaded by anyone opening the file in Vim. The markers are defined by the option, which defaults to three consecutive open curly braces to start a fold and three consecutive closed curly braces to end a fold. This method is mostly useful when the other options don't give satisfactory results, either because a syntax file does not define folding, you want to break up a file into logical portions instead of syntactical constructs, or you are folding plain text in some way. If you change the default 'foldmarker' setting, be sure to communicate the correct setting to other people in some way. An especially effective method for this would be to use a modeline, so that most Vim users will get your intended settings by default when they edit the file. Diff folding This foldmethod should never be set manually without very good reason. It is the default fold method when using Vim in diff mode. Simply running any of the commands to put Vim in diff mode will set this option for you. It works by folding away lines that do not differ between the buffers in the diff, so that you can focus on the lines with differences. Note that you can tweak the number of lines to leave unfolded, using the option. If you want folding in diff/patch files, see Folding for diff files instead. Opening and closing folds The command zc will close a fold (if the cursor is in an open fold), and zo will open a fold (if the cursor is in a closed fold). It's easier to just use za which will toggle the current fold (close it if it was open, or open it if it was closed). The commands zc (close), zo (open), and za (toggle) operate on one level of folding, at the cursor. The commands zC, zO and zA are similar, but operate on all folding levels (for example, the cursor line may be in an open fold, which is inside another open fold; typing zC would close all folds at the cursor). The command zr reduces folding by opening one more level of folds throughout the whole buffer (the cursor position is not relevant). Use zR to open all folds. The command zm gives more folding by closing one more level of folds throughout the whole buffer. Use zM to close all folds. Mappings to toggle folds With the following in your vimrc, you can toggle folds open/closed by pressing F9. In addition, if you have :set foldmethod=manual, you can visually select some lines, then press F9 to create a fold. inoremap za nnoremap za onoremap za vnoremap zf Here is an alternative procedure: In normal mode, press Space to toggle the current fold open/closed. However, if the cursor is not in a fold, move to the right (the default behavior). In addition, with the manual fold method, you can create a fold by visually selecting some lines, then pressing Space. nnoremap @=(foldlevel('.')?'za':"\") vnoremap zf In the first mapping for Space, @= refers to the expression register ( ). The following expression is evaluated when Enter is pressed (). The value of foldlevel('.') is determined (the fold level at the current line, or zero if the current line is not in a fold). If the result is nonzero (true), the result is 'za' (toggle fold); otherwise it is "\", which evaluates back to the default behaviour of the key (move forward by one character). Saving folds before closing vim Vim provides a good mechanism called view. You can use it to save a fold. See Make views automatic. You may also want to use plugin . Commands over folds Folds can be created using one of the methods described above. Then, all the folds can be closed using zM. Now, commands can be executed on each line that is folded, using :folddoc . Reopen the folds using zR to see the results. ::Todo: Explain how a command stored in a register can be executed this way. Ctrl-r, followed by the register name does not appear to execute the set of keystrokes for each line that is folded? See also *Syntax folding of Vim scripts discusses folding for files in the Vim script language *Auto-fold Perl subs discusses folding for the Perl language *Dosini files includes information about folding in DOS-style .ini files References * * * * * * Comments